“After trespassing in my territory for a single glimpse of nightfolk perspective, are you so afraid of encountering it?”
“Aspect can’t distinguish between fact and opinion. They haven’t reached that level of critical cognition yet. This would throw their entire perception of the Daylands, of me, of themself, into total chaos. They might run away. And then how would I find them? How would I fix them?”
“Kori.”
She’s standing behind me now. I know it from the phantom heat of her breath against where my helmet melds with my torso armor. The hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end, even though I can’t fully feel the temperature shift through my suit. I don’t look at her, keeping my eyes firmly fastened on the sun-forsaken bookshelf and its damnable false history.
“You told me you were trying to raise Aspect to sentience, did you not?”
“I am.”
“A sentient comes to their own conclusions.”
A bitter laugh escapes me at that. “Do they, now?”
Adria sounds genuinely perplexed. “I fail to see the joke.”
I don’t know how to tell her that my formal education consisted entirely of Daylands government-approved—that is, Chloe-approved—records. Questions were met with larger files to download, not space to fashion answers. I don’t think I’ve ever been given the opportunity to reach my own conclusions. By this measure of humanity, I’m no more human than Adria or Aspect. I’m hardly sentient at all.
Head spinning, I forcibly change the subject. “How do you know your historical records are true?”
“How do you know yours are true?”
“You can’t just turn all my questions back in on themselves.”
“It seems to be working so far.” I sigh deeply, but Adria continues, “I believe it was an old Earthside saying, that history is written by the winners. Regardless of who started the conflict, your people drove mine out of the Passage, and its potential for ongoing original floral and fauna growth was shut down. I would say you won.”
I think about the vast swath of dead land, the skeletons I’ve seen scattered belowCharon’s flight, the strange animals fighting over what few scraps remain. “Nobody won the battle over the Passage. So I suppose it doesn’t matter who started it.”
Adria blows out a breath and crosses her arms, defiant. “Then what are you so afraid of?”
I grit my teeth. “Copy the file onto a data drive. I can plug it in directly, run a duplication, and transfer while Aspect is powered down. If they have an existential crisis, it won’t be anything I haven’t experienced while trying to fall asleep.”
Adria seems to tense at that. “Is sleep restless for your people, what with the constant light?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Just me.”
I had another terrifying dream when I last closed my eyes. Fragments, nonsense, but they all wedge inside me like shrapnel, persisting even when I’m awake. My limbs, pinned down to a medical table. Swirls of colors without names, language without meaning, too much input, and I’m choking. Chloe’s voice, I think, somewhere faraway.Kori, can you hear me?
“Then we have something else in common,” Adria says, but though the words sound pleased, her voice sounds like it comes from the bottom of a well.
I manage a sad smile before remembering she can’t see it through my mask. “I’m smiling, I promise. Excuse this sun-forsaken thing.”
“I must say, you’re in an awfully advantageous position for a prisoner.”
“Honored guest.”
“Temporary resident.” She smiles back at me then, before continuing: “You could be sticking your tongue out and rolling your eyes right now, even hissing under your breath, but between the voice filtration and the radiation mask, it’s impossible for me to tell.”
“I could take it off, if you’d like to watch me choke and die from the unfiltered atmosphere.”
“I should probably take you to dinner first.”
I laugh, then—a real laugh, so alive that even the mask’s filtration can’t fully flatten it. I thought I’d be lucky to emerge from the Shadowlands with only a few counseling sessions’ worth of trauma, but here I am, wandering a forbidden library with an equally forbidden girl, beyond the grasp of the sun or school or my responsibility of succession,enjoyingmyself.
It feels like whenCharonfirst rolls onto the launch pad, then lurches up, up,uplike a star being born, careening into the sky, limitless. I’m giddy and weightless with no one to hold me down, regardless of the consequences.
Maybe the nightfolk archives are a false history, crafted to perpetuate the rift between our people, but why shouldn’t I determine that for myself? Why should I program Aspect to reflexively trust whatever they’re told, when I resent every part of me that’s been trained to do the same?
